How To Create A Website For Affiliate Marketing

If you’re willing to get into affiliate marketing, creating a website can help you streamline the process. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner, as with advanced website builders and free hosting plans, it’s easier to create an affiliate marketing website than ever.

However, like any other business or job, creating and running an affiliate marketing website requires planning and consistency. Before diving into the steps for building a website, we’ll go through some basic concepts for those getting started. 

What is Affiliate Marketing?

In our day-to-day lives, we recommend several products and services to our friends or family members, right? It could be the restaurant you visited last week or a new e-commerce platform that sells oversized t-shirts with funky designs. 

In a way, you’re helping the business gain another customer, and that’s exactly what affiliate marketing is, except the recommendation takes place online, through a video, social media post, or a website, and you get paid for the recommendation.

Creative analogies aside, here’s what the affiliate marketing process actually entails. First, you select a brand’s specific product, then join their affiliate program to promote it online. Whenever someone buys the product through your affiliate link, you get a small commission, and that’s it. 

Why Do You Need a Website for Affiliate Marketing?

It’s easy to begin an affiliate marketing business. However, as you collaborate with more brands and add more products to your portfolio, managing all the different links becomes difficult, primarily if you operate on a social media account or a video-sharing platform.

Having your website helps you streamline your affiliate portfolio. Keeping all the products and buying links in one place saves you time. Further, having a well-managed website with elaborate product descriptions and ratings helps you create credibility, drive traffic, and diversify without hassle.

Now that we’ve revised these concepts let’s start with the steps required to create a website that will help you generate an income stream in 2024. 

Steps To Create a Website for Affiliate Marketing

Choose a Genre

The first thing that you need to do is find yourself a genre or a niche, which will, in turn, help you promote the products that you like. Try to come up with something of genuine interest, as this enables you to sustain the venture for the long term without feeling burdened. This will also help you connect and sell to a particular audience looking for similar products. 

For instance, if you like traveling, you can create a fantastic affiliate website around related products, such as airline tickets, accommodation, car rentals, extreme weather gear, and other readily available accessories. Similarly, if you like smartphones, you can affiliate a dozen products, like screen guards, phone covers, headphones, power banks, chargers, cables, etc. 

Along with finding the niche that interests you, you should also put some time into determining the profitability and the market trends. Once you’re through with the genre, start finding platforms that collaborate with affiliate marketers. Considering the examples given above, Booking.com, Skyscanner, and Amazon could be excellent affiliate partners.

• Find a niche that interests you.
• Conduct online research to find out the related products and services.
• Figure out the correct affiliate partners.
• Sign up for their affiliate marketing programs.

Decide Which Type of Website You Wish to Build

Once you’ve picked up a genre for yourself, the next thing is determining the type of website you wish to run. The easiest way is to start a blogging website around the topic and find meaningful anchors to place the affiliate links. However, you can create a simple retail listing website if you don’t want to write detailed blogs. Both of these methods are beginner-friendly and require very little investment. 

However, if you’re confident about your skills and you already have an excellent reputation among brands, you can create a review website where you post in-depth reviews. On the other hand, if you’re into website designing and have what it takes to handle a slightly complex back-end, you can go for a product/price comparison website, too. 

• Blog or retail websites are easier to maintain and update than comparison websites with an extensive database.

Buy a Relevant Domain and Hosting Service

Once you’ve decided on the type of products you wish to sell, creating a domain name becomes easy. Brainstorm upon several ideas and check their availability on domain name aggregators. The domain name should contain a keyword that is related to your niche.

For example, if I want to start a blog around traveling in India, “theindiantraveller” could be a good domain name, mainly because it contains all the keywords. Upon checking on GoDaddy, I found that the domain is available for INR 699 yearly with a “.in” extension. Similarly, you can use the domain aggregator of choice to get the required domain name.

The next thing you need to do is choose a hosting service. Most affiliate websites can use a Shared hosting plan, which is affordable and effective. You can select from several hosting providers, such as Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress, etc. Several hosting providers have dedicated online selling plans and website builders.

For example, the Bluehost Plus WordPress hosting plan costs INR 279 per month for a 36-month term. It provides hosting for unlimited websites, unmetered SSD storage and bandwidth, and a complimentary domain name for one year. However, this remains an example, and you can purchase whichever hosting service you deem suitable for your affiliate marketing vision.

• Get the required domain name from a trusted aggregator.
• Decide which hosting service you require based on the additional services and features.
• Look out for AI website builders while getting the hosting plans, as they are beneficial. 

Create a Crisp and Appealing Website

Given that the main objective of your website is to encourage users to purchase the recommended items, ensure that the overall theme, such as the background color, the font style/size, the placement of buying links, and the overall look of the website goes with each other. 

Since most hosting service providers now offer AI-based website designing tools and customizable templates, it has never been easier to set up a website from scratch. One pro tip is to go through several websites in your niche and get an idea of their design language. You can always experiment with a new theme, but it should be easy to follow.

Start Planning Content

Once you’re done with the domain name and hosting services, familiarize yourself with the publishing process, as you’d have to do it repeatedly. Most content management systems (CMS) are beginner-friendly. 

However, if you’re having trouble figuring things out, consider going through detailed YouTube crash courses. These videos often contain all the details you need, from how to publish content to managing the CMS, scheduling posts, uploading images, videos, etc.

The type of content you publish is also important, given that it will help you create a hold on your audience and establish credibility. For instance, you can curate several travel blogs around topics like “things to keep in mind,” “five essential items that you need,” “best waterproof trekking shoes,” and more. 

Making an editorial calendar helps you keep track of the blogs or retail listings you wish to create and your ongoing progress. As we mentioned, be consistent with the blogs or the retail listings.

• Familiarize yourself with the CMS.
• Create a content calendar for yourself.
• Be consistent with the posts or the retail listings.

Add Affiliate Links to Your Website

Once you have a couple of posts ready, it’s time to place the affiliate links you’ve procured from affiliate partners. Most modern programs provide a catalog of products you can promote through your website. Generally, you must copy the affiliate link with your credentials and embed it in the blog post or create a retail listing.

Different affiliate programs work differently, so the purpose of placing the links differs. For instance, if you only wish to redirect a potential customer from your blog to an aggregator website, a text embed mostly works. However, if the purpose of the link is to make a sale, you might want to create appealing “Buy Now” buttons or product listings that contain high-quality images.

Drive Traffic to Your Site Through SEO

There are several ways to drive traffic to your website. The most common way is search engine optimization (SEO), which is not just about optimizing the blogs you’re writing but also helps you develop relevant ideas that are trending and might help you gather a larger audience. 

You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator, or Moz Keyword Explorer for basic keyword research. Use these platforms to learn about the current search trends and the trending/related keywords. Then, put those keywords in your blogs’ descriptions, subheads, and main text.

For instance, entering the keyword “travel” of Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator suggests a huge search volume for related keywords like “travel bag.” One can now create a blog post based on the keyword, listing five travel bags from their affiliate portfolio. 

• Conducting keyword research helps you find relevant topics, products and gather an audience for your affiliate website.

Use Social Media to Boost Traffic and Sales

You can also use other tools like YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels to redirect traffic to your affiliate website and boost sales. For instance, if you’ve come across an excellent travel bag and you wish to promote the product on social platforms, get the bag, create a compelling short video, and upload it on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and other social platforms that you’re active on, with an actionable link that lets interested customers buy the product. 

Ultimately, this article provides an overview of the general steps in setting up an affiliate marketing website. The exact steps, however, could differ based on the choices you make on the way.