Affiliate Marketing: A-Z Beginner’s Guide

by Editorial Staff
Last Update 7 months ago
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Have you ever thought of a passive way of making money? Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways you can make money online. But how do you start the whole idea of affiliate marketing?

If you are a beginner and you would love to start your affiliate marketing journey, I have made a comprehensive guide for the beginner. I must apologize for the length of this post but I have covered everything that beginners should know about affiliate marketing.

After going through this post, it will be much easier to start making money through affiliate marketing. Enjoy reading and share the post with your friends.

Affiliate marketing requires skills for you to start earning money. It is a huge platform with so many people making money. If you are a beginner and you would love to get started as an affiliate marketer, you need to learn various strategies that will help you generate traffic to these offers.

The good thing is that anyone can do affiliate marketing. You just need to get the right knowledge and have the DESIRE to learn. This is what this guide is all about.

In as much as anybody can do affiliate marketing, it doesn’t apply to every person though. This is a process that requires hard work and you can take several years before you start getting financial rewards.

Affiliate Marketing Definition

What exactly is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of selling other people’s products through blogs and websites and you earn a commission. When you make sales through your affiliate link, you earn a commission which depends on the percentage that is provided by the seller. For people who have websites, you can monetize your website easily and make money through affiliate marketing.

This industry has four main players. It includes

the merchant,
the network,
the publisher and
the customer.

Today, the market has expanded and there are other secondary players like super-affiliates, affiliate management industries, third-party vendors and much more.

Many people confuse affiliate marketing with referral marketing. In as much as both are forms of marketing that use third parties to generate sales to the retailer, they are different.

The major difference between the two is how they drive the sales. Affiliate marketing depends on financial motivations while referral marketing depends on relationships and trust.

How does Affiliate Marketing work?

With affiliate marketing, you need to have a blog or website. Today, there are different ways in which you can do affiliate marketing without the need of a website, most affiliate marketers prefer to have their own website especially if you want to build a brand and make money long-term.

The next thing you need is an affiliate link. This is a special link for all the products you are promoting. These links have tracking that ensures you get credits for every sale made.

For instance, when a customer makes purchase from your affiliate link, the merchant will know that it is your link that sent the customer. These links do not affect the customers in any way. In fact, most customers will never know that they purchased a particular product from an affiliate link.

The main purpose of the affiliate link is to show that when a customer clicks your affiliate link and makes a purchase with a specified period of time, then you get a commission. This means that you should have many people clicking your links as this increases your chances of earning more commissions.

Cookies remember every link that the visitor clicks. They store important information such as dates, time of click and the type of website or content. You should get more traffic for your website to increase the number of clicks on your links.

What is an Affiliate Program?

Affiliate programs are special programs developed through electronic automation which links web advertisers with recruited webmasters. These webmasters are tasked with the role of doing marketing for the affiliate company by placing the company’s advertisements on their own websites.

This way, the company is able to create awareness for its products and services to a larger market target. The company will reward each affiliate marketer for any purchase made due to their efforts. This means as an affiliate, your commission or reward will be proportional to your efforts made in contributing to increased purchases for the company.

Affiliate marketing is becoming common with online marketers who have started feeling the great impact. As a result, they continue to develop more advanced affiliate programs that will help reach more market base.

One may ask how the company knows ads made by each webmaster. Well, the affiliate programs are designed in a way that each webmaster is linked to the company website through the affiliate links.

These links allow direct communication between the company and the webmasters. This way, any purchase made as a result of efforts made by the affiliate marketers is reflected on the company website through the affiliate links.

Type of Affiliate Programs

There are several affiliate programs developed over the years to benefit both the company owning the products and services, the web marketers and the webmasters.

This article will highlight some of the best affiliate programs developed and have proven very effective when it comes to online marketing.

Rakuten Linkshare
ClickBank
Commission Junction
Amazon Associate

This affiliate program is designed in a way that it allows you to rotate different banner ads for different specific products. This makes it easier for you to administer the ads and make maximum use of them in creating the much-needed awareness about the company’s products and services.

With this program, you do not have to keep selecting the ads to run on your blog but rather it lets you rotate the ads with a small piece of code. This affiliate program allows you the freedom to choose which page you wish to direct your traffic to.

To get started with this program, you simply sign up through a very easy procedure and you are good to start earning your affiliate income.

This affiliate program was developed to deal with the marketing of digital products which have become very popular with most clients nowadays. A good example of such products and services is the eBooks we purchase and pay for through the online platform.

This affiliate program does not limit people based on occupation; you are free to sign up for an account in regardless of your occupation to access the products and services.

As an affiliate using this program, you will enjoy high commissions for any purchase made using your affiliate links. It is also worth noting that this affiliate program is simple to operate which makes it popular with many affiliates.

I would recommend anyone for this affiliate program for the many attached benefits which include free registration, freedom to sell diverse products, quick payment, high commissions and very easy to operate the program.

This is one of the largest affiliate program developed over time with a very broad network that offers its services to popular and well-established organizations.

It is designed in a way that it acts as what you would call an intermediary between the company owning the products and services and the marketing affiliate charged with marketing the products to final customers.

You will find other affiliate programs still offered in this program. This program makes it easier for you to monitor the progress of the company you are promoting in terms of sales.

Better still, you can choose which company to promote from several companies offering similar goods and services. The benefits of adopting this program include a large platform with diverse products, simple operational procedures, and easy monitoring.

I would rate this as the best affiliate program currently. It brings numerous sellers and affiliates together and the benefits attached to its use are many as well.

This program allows you as an advanced affiliate marketer to create custom tools and websites with APIs and Amazon implementations something rare with most affiliate programs.

Once enrolled in this program, you can choose which products interest you thus promote products that you are passionate about. You do this by coming up with reviews or by writing interesting articles about the products and services.

Who are Affiliate Marketers?

Affiliate marketers are people who promote other people’s products or company’s products and get paid a commission for doing so. Affiliate marketers tend to view them as people who turn interests and passions into business ventures.

They identify a product they like from a certain established or upcoming company then go an extra mile to recommend that same product to other people. The affiliate marketer packages the information about the product they are promoting so nicely that you are convinced to make a purchase and try the product after listening to them.

What they will not tell you is that for every purchase you make, they are entitled to a commission through the affiliate link they send you to make your purchase. As an affiliate marketer, you should be very knowledgeable about the product you wish to promote so as to give correct and convincing information to the target market. This way, you win their loyalty and any product you recommend to them they are likely to try it out.

How much an Affiliate Marketer makes money per month

It is important to start by noting that affiliate marketing is a very profitable business and yet very volatile in nature. This means at times it becomes unpredictable to say how you will earn on daily basis. You may do your marketing today and earn over $10 but that does not mean the same will recur tomorrow. Tomorrow you might just earn $2 and you call it a day.

The earnings from affiliate marketing are proportional to your efforts made in spreading the affiliate links and how many people use your affiliate links to make the actual purchase. There are classes of affiliate marketers depending on the earnings per month or per day.

These include low-level affiliate who earn between $0-$9000 in a month, the intermediate affiliate who earn from $9000-$90000 in a month, the high-level affiliate marketer earns from $90000 a month and the advanced affiliate earn up to $300000 a month. Your earning, therefore, will be pegged on the level you are as well as the number of people who use your affiliate links to make purchases.

Affiliate Marketplace or Network

An affiliate marketplace or the affiliate network is the intermediary that exists between the affiliates and the company affiliate program. It is through this affiliate marketplace that the company is able to reach a larger market audience to promote their products and services.

The company is also able to select the best affiliate programs to adapt for their products to sell faster and hit the sales target within the stipulated time. In simpler terms, the affiliate marketplace is the meeting space for both the affiliate marketers and the Companies manufacturing and selling different products and services.

This space allows each party to compare and contrast which party to work with for maximum benefits. The affiliate marketers look at which companies and products are fetching huge profits in terms of commissions.

On the other hand, the companies look at which affiliate programs will generate better traffic to make their products and services sell quicker. This space is very important and it is kind of the backbone that holds the affiliate marketing business.

How do they(Affiliate Network) work?

The affiliate marketplace or network is designed in a way that it brings the affiliate marketers within a closer reach of the companies doing marketing for their goods and services online.

The make of the affiliate network seems to favor the affiliate marketers since they are entitled to free registration while the Companies have to pay for them to participate in the affiliate marketing.

That not-withstanding, the companies involved have to pay a certain percentage of the commission given to affiliate marketers, to the people running these affiliate networks. This charge that these marketing companies pay is called the over-ride.

The two parties pooled together through the affiliate network benefit greatly. For the Companies who are affiliate merchants, they are able to keep track of the latest technologies being used to market products and services to the final consumers.

In addition, they are able to process payment for their affiliate marketers quicker and more safely. The companies also enjoy a large pool of affiliate marketers who make it easier to cover more market and reach many clients within a short period of time. What is more, the companies are able to keep track of the efforts made by the affiliate marketers through reporting tools.

As for the affiliate marketers, you are granted free registration to start off your affiliate marketing business, you are able to monitor the performance of the different companies and their product thus select those with good commissions, you are exposed to simple diverse affiliate programs to work with and you get reliable payment.

Top 5 Affiliate Marketplaces for Beginner

Amazon Affiliates

Amazon is probably the most famous affiliate marketplace out there. Almost everybody has purchased something from Amazon. Wouldn’t you want to be somewhere behind the scenes doing business with such an affiliate marketplace?

First, the large online stores ensure that you have a variety of products to choose from. They pay so fast upon a purchase on your referrals. They have high-quality product pictures and are very reputable in making your work generally easier. The services offered by Amazon such as quick deliveries make it a pacesetter among the rest.

Markethealth

It is so difficult to talk about marketing that converts without mentioning health and beauty products. If you are interested in an affiliate marketplace that is dedicated to marketing beauty, you are in the right place. However, beauty products are always, for lack of a better word, overpriced compared to other products. Therefore, you will have to work harder to move the products around.

As a beginner, you will need to buy and sell with your local community, as it is more affordable. It will help you identify products near you thus opting for different products. It has a large category of goods to choose from.

Clickbank

Clickbank is another retailer that not every beginner should write off. With an ever growing large customer base, you are almost guaranteed that your products are going to reach your intended customers. It classifies products into categories making it easier for marketers and buyers to navigate quicker.

The standard all in one search engine optimization should be the dream of every beginner. Better search results can go a long way into making turnovers. That is not all; beginners get to benefit from the large knowledge base at Clickbank from the basics all the way. You are also able to choose from a variety of products to market.

Commission Junction

Can you imagine working as a beginner for a company that has not yet established their grounds in the market? It can be very frustrating and would influence your work. It is easier working for a more reputable company that is more established such as Commission Junction. Moving such products is much easier.

Besides, it will connect you to a consumer and earn more to a publisher for promoting adverts. The networks, features, and solutions that you can benefit fit from this marketplace make it the best for any beginner.

Rakuten Marketing

This is an affiliate market that every beginner should look forward to working with. It is able to promote a discovery while developing and marketing new ideas to maximize profits. There is no affiliate market that has an advertiser solution and a publishers’ as Rakuten does.

In fact, it is so important because it acts as an advertising intermediary thus able to make money for both promoter and sellers. A beginner will benefit from the quality, integration and the insights that this affiliate market has to offer. Nevertheless, you will benefit only the technological advancement, feed management and the degree of service these websites offer.

How to choose an Affiliate program?

Do your prior research: It is very easy to get carried away by the sweet deals and offers that merchant is offering. Doing a prior is before getting into an affiliation with anyone is the best way to keep off fraudulent merchants. Going for a merchant with a good history should be your first step regardless of offers or anything.
Evaluate the products and commission rates: The products that you are going to sell should be on demand for you to make greater sales. Nevertheless, it would be meaningless to hustle hard for customers just to earn peanuts. There are actually affiliate programs that pay handsome amounts.
Evaluate the reputability and credibility of the company you are wishing to work with: When any deal goes sour, the weight will come back and lie on you. Are you willing to put your reputation on the line for a fraudulent merchant? Such merchants may fail to pay for your referrals or swindle a customer you referred. A reputable company could save you all that misery I tell you.
Look for a considerate company that trains you on how to use your marketing tools: When it comes to software, one is only able to know what is relevant to them. Can you imagine working with a marketplace that you can barely navigate? As a marketer, you should be conversant with all the aspects of the business. That way, you are able to develop high-quality content that results in greater sales.
Evaluate the quality of the product: As an affiliate marketer, you are not able to dictate the quality of products to sell. However, you have the liberty to make a choice based on quality. Unlike low-quality products, the high-quality ones have a tendency of selling high. You should always put yourself in customer’s shoes in this case.
Is the affiliate merchant offering you all you need to make affiliate sales: Your ads need to look good. It is up to you to make sure that your customers are not shooting the messenger. A good affiliate merchant should offer you beautiful ads that would look good on your website and tracking. In addition, they should also offer you responsive links that generate tracking quickly upon clicking.

Start Affiliate Marketing Step by Step

It is a marketing strategy that is designed to capture a specific well-defined group in a general population. This strategy is designed based on the performance of a product or service with a certain population. You can design it to market only to a given niche or use your niche as a standpoint for your target audience.

Nevertheless, it does not limit you to selling to the larger target audience. With this strategy, you will be able to develop good customer relationships, reduces competition, and increased visibility. Nevertheless, it increases the word of mouth growth and honed opinions while using fewer resources and having more fun.

How to select or choose your niche?

Is the niche your area of interest?

There is nothing as interesting as doing what you love. Following your heart and passion is all you need to drive you through to a successful business. Consequently, you will enable you to avoid distractions from other lucrative prospects and help you avoid regrets. There is nothing as bad as having regrets in business. Majoring in a niche that is an area of interest is a decision you will always look back and smile about.

Identify the problems affecting your niche that you can solve

Are you able to interact with the niche that you are targeting? That will help you identify most of the problems affecting it. However, you are not able to solve all of the problems believe me. Employing idea extraction conversations, perusing forums and researching keywords should get you going.

Research your competition

In spite of fighting complacency, competition can bring down any business if not dealt with well. What is it that your potential competitors are not doing right? Low quality, lack of transparency or paid competitions is just among the many factors that could bring competition. Once you are able to tell what your potential competition is not doing right, capturing your niche becomes easier.

Determine the profitability of your idea

At the end of the day, it is making money that you are interested in. How much you are going to benefit from a niche should be very important. Are you able to evaluate a product and relate it to a given niche? Once you can do that, it is easy to evaluate the profitability of any business. A good idea should always be prospective at achieving maximum profits.

Test your idea

Not every idea always turns out how it was planned on paper. Some ideas underperform while others over-perform. The only way to know that your idea is feasible with a given niche is to roll it out. Starting low scale is recommendable as it is very risky to test the depth of every river with both feet.

Research Keyword and Analyze Competitors

How to research best keyword for your niche?

Research your niche competitors’ data

No business can grow overnight. There is always somebody that started a bit earlier is doing great. The fact that they are doing better means that they probably know what they are doing. These are the people you need to identify and let intelligent tools do the rest of the job for you. Such people are able to set and dictate market trends.

With such information, there is no limit to what your business can achieve. To achieve these, you will need to employ the use of some intelligent tools that are able to deduce data from URLs. They are able to show you the most popular pages your competitor are getting more traffic from and much more.

Manipulate your competitor’s data to your benefits

Once you obtain your competitor data, you are able to manipulate the data to maintain competitive intelligence. Why is your competition getting much traffic from certain links? It is upon you to analyze and comprehend the results. You will, therefore, need to analyze the number of links such pages have.

Building links is more expensive and nobody would be interested in that, is there a better way to go about it? You will simply need to look for the most popular pages with few links. Focus on them first for cheaper keywords ideas without a turn of backlinks. They will really drag you many links to your page.

Use research tools

Using research tools to rank on top in search engines should be the dreams of any businessperson. Such tools are able to break down all your rankings, the keywords on your pages are getting traffic from. Moreover, they will determine the positioning of your pages.

Search analytics shows you all of the impression from keywords and compare with other keywords. You will be ranking for a lot of long tail keywords and bring traffics converting the business to customers.

There are intelligent search tools that are able to deduce data from URLs to show you details of about them. There is also website analysis toolset such as Ahrefs that can show how many links each of those pages have.

Nevertheless, an opportunity score tools that is able to evaluate keywords. There is also a search volume tool that is able to show estimated and the competition levels for your keywords. You can employ many more tools to ensure that you stay ahead of competition out there.

Write about new keywords in advance for long-term

This is one of the simplest and the best way you can use to enhance a keyword for a niche. This method ensures that you are literally living in your competitions future. It is writing about a keyword whose that is imminent of blowing any time in the future.

However, the method is anticipatory and does not guarantee success. In addition, it is long term thus would not work for people interested in instant results. The process would, however, make be a good catch if everything follows the script.

Research keyword using Long Tail Pro

This tool will provide you automated and competitive keywords for use on your pages. The tool is able to generate several keyword suggestions based on your prime keyword suggestions. You can set it up by linking it with other accounts for maximum benefits.

Nevertheless, you are able to scope out the competition with the ability to filter, export and sort results to achieve more with your data. Finally, it will assist in getting in-depth domain and page level metrics of any page. The main benefit of this tool should be to picking a better keyword for maximum profitability.

To research a keyword, you will have to create a project keyword in long tail pro such as project title and keyword language and your targeted audience. The second step would be to search for valuable keywords. What you have in mind is called a seed keyword. The tool will generate other suitable keywords to use with besides your keyword.

You will then have to assess a keyword’s competitiveness. The tool is able to generate some numerical figures that you can then compare to a competitiveness chart. You can then finally settle on what keyword to use on your website.

Why is using the long tail keyword research toolimportant? It is essential for the speed and effectiveness of your keyword search. First, it will help you generate long tail keywords for given audiences. This could prove important, especially when you want to target, a niche within a given population.

It will assist you to easily, analyze the competitiveness of a long tail keyword. Can you imagine how much difficult it would be to calculate such a relative figure? Thanks to the tool, you will have a score for each keyword and compare against a table. Together with key metrics, you are able to select the right keywords all the time.

Analyze competitors using SEMrush

Nowadays, fluctuating SEO factors coupled quest for informed research data is essential to breaking the ice with rivals.

Monitoring keyword ranking of your website beyond backlinks and those of entrants is at the heart of any insightful SEO strategy. Thankfully, SEMrush never ceases to amaze! It is the real Mr. Fix it.

SEMrush is the definitive virtual online marketing toolbox that provides upgraded link-development tactics. This means you have the power to analyze traffic speedily and advance digital advertising innovativeness to realize your arduous enterprise goals.

In-depth competitor analysis

You could ask! How do I analyze competitors using SEMrush? Firstly, you have to understand:

Who are your competitors
What they are up to
Their keyword rankings
Their backlinks

Thereafter, you can develop strategies and track your progress and keep all these consistent to realize positive results. Besides, this will assist you to achieve cutting-edge volume-based result classification.

Additionally, you can ‘mine’ appropriate keywords, develop new content or ideas and smart decisions for a spike in traffic.

To arm yourself, you can utilize these SEMrush tools at your disposal.

Keyword research

Before doing the ranking, SEMrush provides amazing keyword research tool for prospective keywords within your domain or outside.

In addition, you can check how your competitors are ranking for vibrant SEO strategies that counter the tide.

Domain Synopsis

This is just a SEMrush overview of competitor performance in the virtual world and a glimpse of their traffic.

Whether it is paid search, organic search or organic keywords, this SEMrush tool will help you understand competitor AdWords including rankings.

Furthermore, you can analyze your rival’s backlink profile and identify top-niche sources for links while fishing more to your site.

Remember, backlinks provide sound authority for website management and high ranking in the SEO space.

Resultantly, you have access not only to all competitor backlinks but also IPS, domains, including internal and external links. You can spot specific types of rival links and anchor text before developing a comparison.

With these tools, it is important to come up a plan and a line of attack to upturn your website traffic and rankings.

Don’t forget to create and refresh your site with captivating and irresistible content relevant to people’s needs. This is a cue for extra keyword leverage.

Lastly, with these SEMrush tools, an audit of your progress will be easy for improvements for effective page optimization. Always assess your social media campaigns and those of competitors and never forget to keep these efforts a consistent initiative.

Niche Affiliate Website Building: Step by Step

Register keyword friendly domain name

A domain name is a name which you use on your website. The name bears a significant impact. It impacts your brand as well as your online marketing.

Why a domain name is important

1It remains constant even after changing your web host. Therefore, your visitors will not need notifications every time you change your host.
2A domain name gives your business credibility. With the rise in online business, very few people will be willing to transact with a business company without a domain name.
3If your domain name matches the name of your business, it will be easy to remember. Visitors can frequently visit the site without having to check your cards or documents.
4Having a domain name offers respectability. Therefore, it boosts your chances of having good advertising sponsors.

Registering domain name for your niche website

You have to register your preferred domain name with ICANN through domain name registrar. For instance, if you choose the domain name “instance.com,” you will consult a registrar of your choice. The registrar will ask for payment that ranges between $10 and $35 US Dollars. On payment, the registrar will grant you rights to that name for a year, after which you will need to renew it annually.

There are web hosts who will register your domain name and pay for it, especially commercial web hosts. On the other hand, some web hosts will handle the registration process for you, but you will need to pay extra for the services.

Pick WordPress hosting for affiliate website

Web hosting services pose the most significant challenge for a burgeoning affiliate marketer. It is a stumbling block because many ignore it, or it seems difficult to set up.

Before deciding which is the best, consider the hosting you prefer.

Types of hosting

Shared

It is the cheapest type of hosting. Here, the web host stores your data and the data of other sites on the same computer. They offer you limited features such as the method of uploading files, and the programs you are allowed to run on the server. If you are a new website owner, this is the ideal pick.

Virtual Private Server (VPS)

This hosting is attractive and a middle ground option. You get a desirable level of functionality at an affordable price. Here, you share hardware resources, but get better performance than shared hosting. Also, more features are available.

Physical Private Server

Among the three, it is the best option, since you own your machine. Nonetheless, you will need management skills to set the site up and maintain it. In return, you get unlimited flexibility and customization ability.

Best WordPress hosting on the market

BLUEHOST

It is the most popular provider and the leading service in WordPress sites. It is relatively cheaper and minimizes your hassle since it is inclusive of the one-click WordPress set up. Its share hosting plans are as low as $3.95 monthly; mid package is at $5.45 and VPS at $29.99.

Irrespective of the package, they offer you a free domain which you retain even after changing your hosting service. They offer a 24/7 customer support and 30-day money back guarantee.

Siteground

If not Bluehost or Hostgator, marketers tend to opt for Siteground. Their prices are higher, the lowest being $3.95, before any taxes. Note that that is the price for a first-time customer; their standard rate is twice higher.

All their plans feature limited bandwidth and storage. The lowest package has a 10GB storage and 25,000 bandwidth, and the highest offer 30GB storage and 100,000 visitors.

Siteground is famous for the quality of its services and their supportive customer care. All their servers use SSD, Solid State Drivers which makes retrieving data fast. They have better speed and operation.

Hostgator

Hostgator is labeled as a top web hosting companies and is a popular choice. They offer the users 45 days money back guarantee. Their shared hosting costs $5.37 monthly, and have discounts for purchasing three years services.

They offer a business plan which is inclusive of a private SSL for free. Their prices are just marginally higher than other hosting sites.

Install WordPress using 1-Click Installer

WordPress is very simple to install. However, web hosting companies offer their users one-automatic click installation. The standard four are Softaculous, Fantastico, Media Temple (mt) and Installation 1-Click Installer.

When using Softaculous

Log in to your web hosting service
Go to the services or software section
Locate Softaculous
Click on Softaculous and select the Blogs category
Find WordPress in the Blogs Category
Click the “Install” tab
Fill in the required details
To complete installation, click the install button

Installing WordPress with Fantastico

Go to your C Panel account
Click on “Fantastico Deluxe” or “Fantastico” button
Check on the left side of the screen
Locate the Blogs category
Select WordPress on the Blog Category menu
Fill in the login information
Click “submit.”

Installing WordPress with Media Temple

Log to the Account Center through the secure link
Choose your Grid-Service primary domain
Click on “1-Click Application”
Select the “Add New Application”
Click the “Start” button
Provide your set up information
Click install”
Click on finish to complete your WordPress installation

Installing WordPress with 1-Click Installer from your hosting company

If your hosting Company doesn’t offer access to Installatron, locate the “Installatron” button
Select “Install this application.”
Select the language you prefer
Click on Install

Note that if your hosting company doesn’t offer access to Installatron, you have the option of installing it from Installatron.com.

Installing WordPress from Installtron.com

Navigate and select “Install this WordPress Installatron.”
Fill in your FTP hosting account details, or provide your account information
Provide MySQL database information
Create an FTP account separately as well as a MySQL database account. They will offer an additional layer of security for the WordPress Installation
Customize your WordPress installation by choosing the language you want to have
Select the “Install” button and start installing WordPress
As the installation completes, you will be redirected

Pick a Best WordPress theme for affiliate website

Genesis Theme Framework

Genesis theme is framework stands out because it is search engine optimized. As the website owner, you need put all efforts to ensure you rank well so visitors can find you. Genesis supports Schema.org.code hence enables the user output microdata to their site’s code. Thus, it enhances search engine optimization for your website.

Since Genesis is built on HTML5, it offers sleek, professional design, at an affordable cost. It has turnkey designs that array different beautiful frames for your site. HTML5 is a boost for your site because it is a new code standard. It makes your site compatible with any future changes in the website.

HTML5 further enhances cross-browser compatibility. Therefore, your site will be highly responsive thus mobile-friendly. It also increases the ability of your site to deliver videos and audio. If you need your site to serve as an app, opt for the HTML5.

With Genesis Theme, you can instantly and easily update your site through a child theme. Therefore, you don’t have to pay developers to change how your site looks. Changing the outlook of your site does not affect the site`s search engine ranking. The design functions are separate from the core code.

They offer a StudioPress Pro Plus theme package. Subscribing to this theme grants you access to every child theme of the Genesis Framework. You will also get access to themes created in the future.

Using Genesis Theme gives you unlimited options for everything. You get unlimited updates, websites, and support. Unlike other themes, it does not have Developer Options. You can now link your multiple sites.

Since WordPress sites are vulnerable, Genesis offers state-of-the-art security. Commonly, sites are hacked because the owners don’t update their websites regularly. To avoid this Genesis Theme provides instant site updates.

With their lifetime access to the Genesis community and team, they are developers you can trust.

Thrive Themes

Shane Melaugh, a marketing expert, and Paul McCarthy, a tech fanatic, are the dual that came up with Thrive Themes in 2013. Thrive Themes offer conversion focused themes as well as plugins for WordPress. They aim to offer all-in-one services which will enable you to build a website and begin converting visitors into customers and subscribers.

You can buy the themes or plugin individually. Alternatively, you can be a part of the Thrive Membership Scheme, where you can get access to their themes and plugins.

Thrive Themes offer clarity, readability, and speed. Among the numerous themes they offer, some suit best magazine-style blogs, while others are best for selling services and products. Their themes are ideal for individuals and organizations.

Thrive has managed to create a central dashboard in WordPress which enables you to manage and even configure settings for product suites. The panel can be installed products or Thrive features.

Installed products are the upper half and grow as you continue installing thrive products. Thrive features form the other lower half. It is inclusive of general settings for each Thrive products.

Thrive features include API connections which connect Thrive leads with your email delivery, reCaptcha, etc. it provides custom fonts which you can add or edit, notification manager which gives you an option to receive notifications from the occurrence of specific events from your sites.

There are several standard features in their themes such as;

Inbuilt plugins – They include related posts, social sharing buttons, font manager, optimized image galleries, etc.
Focus areas – These ensure you get more sales and clicks form your visitor’s
Secure page generator – with just a few clicks, you get to create sample legal pages, sales pages, opt-in pages and so on
Landing page template – it is a page where you can remove the header navigation link, sidebars, basically anything distractive to a visitor.

Content Strategy for Affiliate Website

Content is a broad topic. There are many different definitions of the word content but they all go down to information. Content is the expression of information to an audience through some media. This media could be video, text or even audio.

Whichever medium you use, you should be able to reach your target audience as effectively as possible. When the content is for an affiliate website, you need to make it as engaging and interesting as possible. I’ll be sharing with you the strategy to use on your content for affiliate website.

Essential Content Type for Affiliate Website

1. Product Reviews

Why is this essential content type? Affiliate websites rely on traffic to their site and the commission they get from purchases of the products they talk about on their site.

Many people will actually look for reviews before they can buy a certain product. Having well written product reviews on your site for popular products will get you overwhelming traffic. You’re also likely to get high ranking on search engines.

2. ‘How to’ Guides

Do you run to the internet for instructions on how to do anything like I do? I bet you do. Everyone goes to the internet for answers. If you make your affiliate website about ‘how to’ guides you’re going to attract quite a huge following.

It is even better when your content is reliable and authentic. Comprehensive guides are what everyone is looking for when they type out a question on google. Be their go to site and you’ll never run out of visitors to your website.

3. Video Tutorials

One of the best ways to attract a following online is to have illustrations on how to do things. It’s much easier when you can see how to get a certain result.

Tutorials are quite helpful and if you focus on such kind of content you’re likely to get so many views in an instance. Most people would rather watch something than read it. It’s even better when there is both visual and textual content.

4. Email Newsletters

You could decide to get more personal with your audience and create a platform where they can sign up and provide email addresses and you can update them on new articles.

This gives you a wider reach and an easier and closer link to your subscriber. This is much more of a link to your various contents and it could give you the traffic you need.

5. Resource Article

Resource article is a resourceful article linking you to the kind of information you’re looking for. In a layman’s language, it is like a reference book. What you find in a resource article are links to different related articles.

For example a resource article on cars will have a comprehensive list of other articles written on different sites about cars. It could be parts of a car, models of cars, cheapest cars or any other relevant information that relates to a car.

How to write killer product review for affiliate website that converts

Focus on popular products

If you want to make your articles hot and high on demand you need to write product reviews on products that the customers love. Popular products gain a lot of readers compared to less popular ones. Before you can decide on your website’s content, research on which products are purchased often.

This information will help you narrow down your content to the most requested information. From there what you can make the content as catchy as possible to keep your reader interested. Popular contents require less effort to sell.

Give personal experiences

There is an advantage to experimenting with a product before you can write a review about it. This equips you with enough information to give your reader a comprehensive and legit review. When you write on something you have not used, you’ll rely on other people’s views which could differ and confuse.

When you can vouch for a product through your own experience, you won’t have a hard time convincing a customer to buy it. Writing your own truth flows naturally and has zero chances of contradicting with the initial product. It also gives you a wide knowledge of the product and you’re able to answer follow up questions on your review with ease.

Be honest

A bold and honest product review is more likely to get a customer buying a product than a sugarcoated one. Do not cover the flaws of a product. You can present them in a subtle way but do not hold back on them. A product with no downside is too good to be true and customers are likely to disregard the whole article as they feel there’s something the writer is hiding.

It’s even worse when a customer buys the product only to find it’s nothing close to what you described on your site. The truth is always better than sugarcoated lies. A customer can buy a product even with its flaws if they are aware of them before they can purchase it.

Put the reader at the center of your writing

Always write things that are beneficial to the reader. Focus on what you think they want to know. You could research on regularly asked questions about the product and cover them in your article. Make the reader see why they need that product. Give them a reason to actually purchase the product even if they did not feel like before reading your review.

Focus on how the product makes the life of the reader easier and better. By doing this you’re likely to get people who did not even intend to purchase a product going for it. They will find your content useful and will never miss any of your reviews.

Use attractive approaches

Make your content interesting to read. Engage the reader as much as possible and keep them glued to the review. How do you achieve this? You do so by changing approaches and even the format of your writing. The same format could be boring and chase away readers.

Use a conversational tone in your article and use easy and simple sentences. Product reviews should be easy to comprehend as you’re trying to convince a random reader to be a buyer of a product they may not even have any knowledge about. Make it informational but in an interesting way.

Must Have WordPress Plugins for Affiliate Website

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

This is plugin is among the best available plugins to help you generate that much-desired traffic to make your affiliate marketing business a big success. This plugin adds specific functionality features to your website which in turn improves your position in the organic search results in the different search engines we have.

This way, you are able to generate much traffic through your affiliate links hence hitting a larger target. The Yoast plugin is user-friendly and very easy to operate. It makes you competitive among other affiliate marketers thus increasing your rank within the shortest time possible.

2. Jetpack

Jetpack is the perfect tool you need as an affiliate marketer to help create your WordPress site in a much-customized way from the initial stage to the end. This plugin will offer you with numerous themes for your site. These themes are not only attractive from the visuals but also are professionally designed thus make your site look classy and more popular with clients.

If you are affiliate dealing with photography products, this would be the best plugin to work with. It will allow you unlimited high-speed image and video upload to your network. This will work to your advantage as clients prefer sites that load images and videos faster from their mobiles.

3. WP Smush

I would recommend this plugin to any affiliate marketer since I have used it personally and seen the benefits when it comes to helping you with website optimization. With this plugin, you are able to save on space for your site which again results in high speed with any upload or downloads from your site. This plugin automatically optimizes and customize every image you upload in any directory so as to save on space. You will be happy to note that despite the resizing of the images, there is no crushing reported from this plugin.

4. Broken Link Checker

When you have a broken link as an affiliate marketer, it can only spell some big losses for you. To rectify such and take a corrective action, you need to make use of the broken link checker plugin provided by WordPress. This plugin will detect any broken link for your website and will notify you through the dashboard shown on the widget.

The broken link will display in a new tab of the WordPress admin panel. Once displayed, you are better placed to rectify the error so as to maximize and optimize profits from all your affiliate links.

5. W3 Total Cache

The recommendation to adopt this plugin for my affiliate marketing website came from not one but several friends who own similar websites. This plugin will give you a remarkable experience for your site. How does it do this? It will make your site have better performance and you will notice the increased speed of downloads.

This plugin comes with unique features which facilitate the functioning of your site. Such features include the Content Delivery Network which brings about performance optimization for your affiliate marketing website. Try it today and taste the experience for yourself.

6. WP-Optimize

There are moments your site runs at a low speed and you are not certain what exactly could be the problem. Well, there may be unnecessary data such as trashed data, unapproved data, spam contents and stale data as well as expired transient options. All these, when present in your site reduce the efficiency of your website and the end result, is reduced performance.

To rectify this, I suggest you get the WP-Optimize plugin which will help you to automatically clean up such data from your website making it run at its highest level of efficiency.

7. Table of Contents Plus

When you are thinking of optimizing your affiliate marketing site, I suggest you try the table of contents plus plugin which is one of the tools of optimization developed by WordPress. This tool brings about optimization for your site by creating a context-specific index for long pages and especially the custom made posts on your website.

In addition, this plugin can provide listing for all the pages in your entire website. It is very powerful but user friendly since the operating procedures are very simple and clear. Get this plugin today and be a live testimonial for your friends doing affiliate marketing.

8. OptinMonster

Some affiliate marketers will often ask how they can convert the frequent visitors to their site into active subscribers. The solution for you is here. Make use of the OptinMonster plugin from WordPress. This plugin allows you to create very excitingly and attention capturing option forms that appear as a popup for your visitors.

When visitors see such attractive popups, they are tempted to leave their email there for you to add them to your email list and just in moments you get subscribers. This plugin will convert visitors to subscribers and help you in optimizing your affiliate marketing website.

9. AMP For WP

The AMP plugin from WordPress is among the best optimization tool for your affiliate marketing website since it is compatible with so many social media sites and pages. This plugin comes with features that allow you to produce quality images that are custom made in size so as to be compatible with devices such as the mobile phones.

The plugin creates quality pages for your site which are easily accessed through shortcodes. The content generated through this plugin can be accessed through mobile phone anywhere at instant. When you use this plugin, your content can be viewed in different platforms such as YouTube, twitter, vine, Instagram, Facebook and have RTL support.

10. Redirection

This plugin in allows you manage errors and keep your website clear of loose ends. With it, you are able to build your ranking for your affiliate website. It can manage over 301 redirections when your site is slow or has error. The redirection plugin will also keep track of 404 errors that might slow down the affiliate site and reduce its effectiveness.

You can configure this plugin so that it is able to monitor any post or page permalinks that have been changed thus redirecting your clients to the new URL. This plugin is very instrument if you need to optimize your affiliate marketing site.

Traffic Generation Strategy for Affiliate Marketing

If you are looking for ways to create traffic to your affiliate marketing website or you need to push up the numbers of people visiting your website, or you have a new site and you want it to kick off on an excellent note, then you just stumbled on the right article that will show you how to generate traffic.

For most people, affiliate marketing is a very confusing term and I have to admit it, it is quite wide. Therefore, in this case, it means utilizing a website that you own as a tool for making another sales website known.

So when you make it known, you are also giving customers a reason to visit the sales website. When customers visit the sales site and get interactive, the owner of that website, in turn, pays you commission for every action you made possible as agreed.

Do you think earning more commission will come easily? No, it won’t because for you to earn the pay, you need to have good quality traffic. How do you do it?

You need to look for adverts that are paid for and promotions. You can find these on search engines, social media and powerful websites. The best adverts and promotions are current and active. They should be regional and relevant. So, when you invest in them, you create more channels for traffic to flow to your website.
Another way which is quite common and works a great deal is fully utilizing social media to get to most latent visitors. There, you will find them in social groups and chat platforms. You will just need to come up with a lucrative approach to reach those people you want. Have a language that appeals to them rather than threatening or forcing or lying to them.
Make sure your website is coded in a genuine way in that search engines won’t be able to come down like a ton of bricks on you. If you can’t do it on your own, find a web developer or designer to help you through the whole coding process.
You can also ensure that your website manages to appear on top lists of most search engines by delivering it to them with all the proper requirements in place.
You may also consider using keywords, captivating titles, meta tags and image tags that are relevant to your content and blend in naturally. Make sure you use keywords in moderation too.
Apart from that, you need to make your website interactive by allowing visitors share comments and ask questions. This way you will be able to find out what is it they really want. You will also learn new ways to improve your website so that it can meet your visitors’ needs.
Another important strategy you may need to put in place is a programme that will follow up on your traffic rates and analyze them closely for you to be able to gauge where you stand. This way you can learn about your weaknesses and strengths.

Wrap Up

After going through this comprehensive guide, I believe it will be easy for any beginner to get into affiliate marketing. I have covered everything that you need to know to succeed well in affiliate marketing.

I believe you will benefit a lot from this post and benefit a lot from all the information given. Good luck as you begin your affiliate marketing journey!

If you have any questions or want to share your tips and experiences, then comment below! Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Editorial Staff

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