How To Set Up An Affiliate Marketing Website? (Complete Guide 2020)

What is Affiliate Marketing?

First thing we should do is to get some background information about affiliate marketing.

I recommend you to not skip a thing. You need to fully grasp what affiliate marketing is in order for you to succeed at it.

So what is affiliate marketing?

It is a type of advertisement that businesses do to have more customers, leading to more sales.

This type of marketing involves a third party, who are the affiliates. They are the ones who promote the products and services of the businesses.

With that being said, let's go straight to the ones who make up affiliate marketing.

What is an Affiliate Marketing Website?

But, wait. Affiliate marketing website? What is that?

Let me explain it further.

There are several ways for you to promote the products of the merchant you work with. Using your affiliate marketing website is one of them.

Your website serves as an avenue where you can put the affiliate tools given to you by the merchant. Tools include banners, widgets, ads and text links.

When your viewers visit your website, they can be your potential referrals and customers. That happens the moment they click on the affiliate tools.

So what does the website contain?

Well, it depends on the product or service you are promoting. This is because you have to make sure that your website content is related to your products.

You simply write articles on your website. You post them. However, you should add your affiliate tools on the webpage to convert your readers into referrals.

How does affiliate marketing work?

If this is your first time encountering affiliate marketing, then you are probably still have a blurry perception of how it works.

So, let me break it down for you.

Naturally, a business wants to be exposed to the people. Why? Because it will lead to more sales.

There are a lot of ways for a business to do this. One of them is affiliate marketing.

The first thing that happens is the affiliate's registration to the affiliate program. Afterwards, the merchant will provide the affiliate tools.

When the affiliate has the text links, banners and other tools, those will be included in the affiliate website.

You, being the affiliate, will write contents for your website, inserting the tools anywhere.

After that, the customer/traffic comes in. There will be visitors on your website, right? They will read your content and if ever they click on the tools, they will be redirected to the merchant's website.

Once that happens, the affiliate program has already marked that viewer as your referral. If that referral makes a purchase, you will earn a commission

What is the importance of a website?

I have mentioned above that there are a lot of ways to do affiliate marketing. However, personally, having a website is the best one.

In fact, most affiliate programs out there prefer their affiliates to have a website. Some consider it as a requirement.

No website means that they are not eligible to join the program.

So what makes a website very important in affiliate marketing?

First and foremost, it can be great at establishing a very large network of referrals. This is very beneficial to both the affiliate marketer and the merchant.

Second, nowadays, the internet is quite accessible to many. Because of that, it can be quite a bit easier for affiliate marketers to reach people from different corners of the world.

It can br a great platform for promoting products and services of the merchant.

How to set up an affiliate marketing website?

Since we have already established some background knowledge about affiliate marketing, let's move on to the main focus of this guide.

How do you set up an affiliate marketing website? Well, here are the steps you need to do!

Choosing a niche and affiliate program

The very first thing you need to do is: choose a niche. I highly recommend you to choose one that is in your best interest.

Why?

So that it will be easier for you to relate to it. You can easily promote the products and services and you will enjoy writing content about it.

The niche will be the one you will focus on. That means, your affiliate programs and website content will be about it.

Don't worry about not finding affiliate programs about your niche. Trust me, there are a lot of affiliate programs out there.

Oh yeah- before signing up in a program, do your very best to research it first. This is very important as you MUST do your best to avoid scams!

You don't want to just waste all of your efforts for nothing.

One thing to include in your research are the terms and guidelines of the affiliate program. You need to know how you will be paid, as well as the commission rate.

Find a domain name

What is a domain name?

It is basically the name of the website you are building.

In order for you to do this, you must go to a domain registrar. There are plenty of them out there.

You can either buy a domain that existed before but expired, or you can buy a new one.

Pro tip: Make sure that your domain name has keywords from your niche, but is still relatively short. Choose the best one that will get more traffic.

BE CREATIVE!

Choose a web host and CMS

Create content

Once you have set up your initial website, it is time for you to fill it up with great content!

Content could either be an article, a guide, a review or anything that is related to the niche of your website.

How you will formulate a strategy to put your affiliate links or tools in or around your content is entirely up to you.

One great way to do it is to link your CTAs (Call to actions) with the affiliate link. You can write an attractive sentence or phrase to persuade visitors to click.

Always check your grammar and also the spelling. Furthermore, please avoid copying content from other websites.

If you do it, you will be punished. One way is to ban your website. You don't want that, do you? So write ORIGINAL CONTENT!

SEO work and decoration

As a website owner, it is very important for you to rank your website higher. This is because you are probably not the only affiliate marketer on that niche.

There are most likely others who are competing against you.

As a result, you must rank higher so that your website is more exposed to the viewers. The higher the rank, the more traffic you can receive.

Remember, as an affiliate marketer and website owner, attracting traffic is the number one priority.

Note: Please be careful when doing your SEO work. There are certain practices that are unethical, called Black Hat SEO. Once you are caught doing it, you will be punished.

Bottom Line

Well, there you have it! I did my best to simplify it for you. Thank you so much for reading my "How To Set Up An Affiliate Marketing Website" guide!

If you have questions, comments and suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comment section.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money. In fact it is very profitable! However, if you really want to do it, please imprint it on your mindset that it will not be that easy.

You will not become rich or earn hundreds of dollars on your first weeks or months.

Affiliate marketing requires time, effort and patience. It requires building up. Furthermore, getting traffic will be challenging. You will probably have a lot of competitors too.

Do not take this as me trying to discourage you. I am just preparing you for the road ahead if you take up affiliate marketing.

Personally, I believe that affiliate marketing is the best way to earn money online. I have been doing it for years already.

Affiliate marketing allows you to work at your own pace. On top of that, you can earn a passive income!

However, just like what I told you, my journey was difficult. But I was able to get back up on the right track when I found the greatest training program, Wealthy Affiliate.

Because of affiliate marketing and Wealthy Affiliate, I earn commissions on a daily basis.

Want proof? Here it is.