I often get asked this question:
What is an example of a great affiliate website
Seems like it would have a simple enough answer, right?
Not entirely so. You see, affiliate marketing is JUST MARKETING. This means it can be applied to just abut any existing website and see some return.
But…
You definitely see website templates repeat themselves.
So I am going to take you through a few of these styles. But first, a brief introduction:
Who am I?
I am an online marketer who makes his entire income from a portfolio of websites. These websites are primarily monetized through various affiliate schemes and give me a lot of financial freedom.
Yesterday’s earnings for just one website: http://ift.tt/1Q4PuDa
Some of you will remember me from a case study I did last year where I grew a website from scratch to 4k/month in under 6 months.
This is an industry I know inside-out and wanted to share some of that knowledge.
Unfortunately, affiliate marketing is an industry plagued by “guru’s” like Pat Flynn and Spencer Hawes who actually know very little and make most of their income “showing you how to do it successfully” rather than doing it themselves. Spencer was so unsuccessful with his previous “monster authority site” (learnu.org) that he swapped out to white labeling.
Over the coming months I will be doing a series of posts on affiliate marketing analyzing parts of the industry in detail before launching a new case study where I will build a site earning 50k/month in under a year (hopefully), part time from scratch, without leveraging an existing brand name or influencer.
No strings. No advertisements. Just case studies based on my experience and opinion.
Why affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing has a low barrier to entry, low overhead and if done right, can be passive. The lack of overhead means that if you strike it big, you keep almost all the money you make (besides the taxman taking a chunk, but this will differ depending on where you are located in the world). No major costs except for your time.
It is a great starting point for beginners to dip their toe into online marketing. Even if your website is somewhat of a failure, you will pick up some very useful skills that are transferable to other industries. Whether a product or service, everything needs to be marketed.
Why start now?
The internet is very much still the wild west; plenty of gold and plenty of crooks. Those of you who think back and wish you took advantage of the .com boom will be doing the same 10 years from now about 2015. It is currently easiest it has ever been to rank a website without blackhat techniques, doing little more than adding value and solving problems.
It can be done. Many readers of r/entrepreneuer are running successful websites bringing in 3k/month with three even earning over 35k. Many of these people have zero experience in online marketing. They just stuck at it, provided quality and have been rewarded for their efforts.
With the intro out of the way, lets take a look at some common affiliate marketing style websites.
1. TWIB CLONE
What is it?
This is a style of website made popular by the website of the same name (thisiswhyimbroke.com) The reason for the popularity is the owner actually hosted an AMA on here and has spoken openly about the earnings in the past (cannot find the exact quote as it may have been deleted but at one stage he was earning 600k/year IIRC).
How it grew
Back in the day reddit advertising used to be cheap. Crazy cheap. Running campaigns site wide cost next to nothing. If you used reddit a few years ago you will definitely remember NSFW(allet) being smeared all over reddit. This ad was simple and incredibly effective, taking a commonly used reddit acronym and combining it with content that was instantly sharable and likeable. TIWIB was perfect for reddits core audience and meshed perfectly, resulting in huge brand awareness for minimal spend.
Pros of this style
- Little work, easy to make a good looking website without being tech savvy.
Cons of this style
= Let’s get one thing straight, because of how little content is makes up a website like this, your chances of appearing on googles coveted front page is virtually zero. This means that social/influencer marketing is the only way you will be driving traffic and as you are no doubt aware, it is tough to start this from scratch.
How you can make it
Googling [Masonry Theme] will reveal many grid based themes and are perfect for those of you with basic CSS/HTML knowledge. Those of you completely clueless about tech can use webicator [ http://webicator.com/ ], a paid theme designed to imitate TIWIB with minimal input from you.
Examples of copycats
Too many to list. These literally pop up every day because you can have a site with products up and running in just a few hours. Some that have recently popped up include:
http://ift.tt/1Q742iM http://ift.tt/1Q4PuDc
Your chances of success
Little to none. The exception to this is if you are experienced in social media marketing or have a pre-built social following/email list.
But do not give up hope, if you can offer something new or unique then you can still see a good success. Drunkmall.com is a great example of this, making himself 500 from just one day on amazon through his website going viral.
2. The price table website
What is it?
A pricing table is a comparison of a few of the more popular products in any given niche. The pricing table generally appears above the fold on each page, so that it is the first thing a reader sees. Clicking any of the products in the pricing table takes the reader straight to amazon.
Underneath the pricing table will be a much more detailed write up on the products. This extra content helps with ranking on google but because the purpose of this style of website is to get readers to click the pricing table ASAP, the content is generally of poor quality, but this doesn’t matter since the majority of your audience wont read it.
Example: http://ift.tt/1NPfA9Z
This style has been around since forever, but went mainstream when Spencer Hawes used this on his survival knife case study. While this website is no longer available (tanked due to use of PBNs) the style lives on.
Pros of this style
- Easy to set up on any theme, there are numerous pricing table plugins for wordpress that allow you to quickly and easily insert a pricing table at the top of your blog post.
Pricing tables convert like crazy
Cons of this style
= This style of website largely relies on organic search to drive traffic. This style is slowly going out of fashion
Example of a site that does pricing tables well:
Example of a site that does pricing tables poorly:
Chances of success:
Better. Because this style of website allows you to incorporate a large amount of copy into your post, it is more likely to be picked up by search engines. Quality is key and the sites that do well provide incredibly insightful content below the pricing table.
3. The top ten
Literally a website that revolves around posting the top ten [insert product here].
Example: http://ift.tt/1Q4PuDe
If you are even remotely new to online marketing you will be hugely aware of just how much users love lists.
Pros of this style
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People love lists. Browse social media at any hour and you will see posts like “top ten ways to stop your ass eating your underwear” or “ten tricks to strike it rich through the power of raccoon hair”. List posts work and they work well.
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While they may not convert as well as a pricing table, they still convert incredibly high since the whole subject of the page is promoting different products. Lists are quite easy to promote on social media if spun from the right angle.
Cons of this style
= It is difficult to do a list post well. All product images need to be sized and presented the same. Content needs to be on point and enough of it that it will get indexed by search.
= Done to death. If you are just listing posts like “top ten strollers” then no one will come.
Example of good top ten:
Example of a poor top ten:
Chances of success
You only get out what you put in. Top ten lists still work well for incredibly unpopular items (say epilators for instance) or if you spin the top ten list a different way say “top ten pet cages that are impossible to escape from”. “top ten beds” just wont cut it. The more effort you put into crafting each post, the more likely you will be to success.
4. The review site
What is it?
When you go to buy a product, you want to buy the best, right? The first thing many consumers do is look up “best [product here]” Or “[product here] review”.
A review style website consists of multiple pages devoted to single products. Scattered throughout these reviews are places you can buy these items (your affiliate links).
The good new is you do not need to physically touch a product in order to review it. Many MANY sites review products just using the pictures from amazon and rephrasing the reviews from the amazon comments section.
Pros of review sites
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Sets you up as an expert in the industry, making it incredibly easy to market yourself to other influencers and bloggers.
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If done correctly, builds trust with your reader and easy to build a social following.
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Your audience is likely at the buying stage.
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If you actually buy your own products to review it is a much higher barrier to entry.
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Potential to earn HUGE.
Cons of review sites
= Requires second most work out of any affiliate style site. Your research needs to be on point and presenting misinformation will lead to readers calling you out for the sham you are.
= Requires you to know the native language in order to effectively get your opinion in the product across
= Must be able to convince others you have used the product, even if you have not.
= Difficult to build a social following around a product at first
= Must know your audience. If you do not answer the questions they want, they will look for the answer elsewhere.
Examples of review sites that physically touch the product:
Cnet.com Wirecutter.com
Examples of affiliate websites that rewrite amazon reviews:
Reviewmyshaver.com Weedeaterjudge.com
Chances of success
Better. The more you research and know your niche inside out and know your audience, the better your review will be. This style of website is all about providing value. The more details and information you can provide the better.
Writing more will see you likely get picked up by google (in conjunction with link building and marketing efforts) especially for long tail keywords.
Just don’t be fooled by how much work it takes to set one of these up.
5. The “premium” website
Basically a higher end guide. The focus is on a premium theme that looks up market with large detailed pictures. Do not be fooled, these websites are surprisingly easy to set up and use their good looks to woo visitors.
Example: hiconsumption.com
It is literally little more than big pictures, a few sentences and affiliate links. But the website SCREAMS premium. And because of this, it has built a loyal social following, a hoard of backlinks and appears quite well in google search (they often target “best [keyword] longtails.
It is amazing the difference an image makes. If you look at the image son hiconsumption.com all they have done is photoshopped the image onto a greyscale background but boy does it look classy. Take this guide for instance:
It’s little more than an affiliate list.
Gearpatrol.com does something very similar. So does manofmany.com. By building a loyal readership you can sell to the same userbase again and again.
Pros of this style:
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Very easy to set up.
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Looks great
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Not overly difficult to build a social following
cons of this style:
= in order to properly present a theme a good knowledge of html, css and a little javascript goes a LONG way
= Photoshop skills are a must
= Social media game needs to be on point
= Need to be an expert at crafting compelling copy.
Chances of success
Worse. Who doesn’t want to get the same result with less work. While it may be simple to set up, driving traffic to a brand new website can be surprisingly difficult. Focus on long tails and unpopular products for a much need boost in google.
6. The cover-all
The cover all is literally a blog post that attempts to answer every single question a user may ask abut a particular product, service or everyday problem.
Cover-alls can be broken up into a entire site where each blog post answers a different part of the niche or an exhaustive 2-10k word article on a single product.
Example of a single page cover all:
Example of a site wide cover all:
http://ift.tt/1KycKXR (this has since grown to include other things unrelated to shaving like workouts and house products).
pros of cover-alls
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Allow you to really flesh out a niche, hitting long tail keywords by accident (trust me, it will happen).
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Become an industry expert
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Long form content currently does the best on google
cons of cover-alls
= Very time consuming
= Boring, especially when it comes to writing about niches you have no interest in
= Requires a lot of research
= Can be difficult to promote on social, particular for multiple single page coverall sites.
= Difficult to outrank existing coveralls.
chances of success
Better. As always, you only get out what you put in. To do a cover-all you have to research and write extensively about a product. If done correctly you WILL become an expert on what you write about, making it incredibly easy to pose as an expert when presenting your site to influencers and bloggers. Just do not underestimate how time consuming and boring this is.
7. Guru Websites
You know the saying “sell shovels in a gold rush” ? well guru websites do that. Although their shovels are more like pitchforks.
Examples include:
Nichehacks .com
Smartpassiveincome .com
And by far the most clueless:
Nichepursuits .com
If you want to check them out, remove the space before the .com but be warned, most of the info is complete rubbish (I have so little respect for these players I will not give them the benefit of a backlink from this post.)
These people all make the majority of their recommending programs and services to help you create a successful affiliate website.
pros of guru websites
= A minor success is all you need to claim to be a guru, the rest is smoke and mirrors.
= Affiliate programs for SAAS (backlink checkers, keyword finders etc) all have incredibly high margins
= Easy money, you are preying on those desperate to be rich that will eat up whatever you throw at them.
= Easy to get on the radar, guru websites are the easiest to pitch guest posts at.
= You will be able to fill your website with guest posts, less writing for you (largely how nichehacks .com operates)
Cons of guru websites
= You need thick skin and to be okay with lying to people
= You need to build a minor success to show off, or have some kind of in with online marketing (working for a big firm for example).
= Highly competitive industry
= Potential to earn is less than building a product-centric website.
= If you do not like to outreach this is not the industry for you, you will be required to piggy back off existing gurus for quick growth.
Chance of success
Worse. In what is already a incredibly saturated market, there is not a whole lot to add, since they are basically an extension of any online marketing blog with they key difference being that they reveal some figures along the way.
Here is someone who started recently:
Nichesiteazon .com is one of the newer “guru style case study” websites to pop up. Mike has since skipped his September income report (now that it is November), so I am assuming he has given up on it or his sites stopped earning (most likely the latter). He was last seen raging about his site being down on twitter - that’s what you get for using bluehost, mike :)
Despite mike being utterly clueless about online marketing (instead relying on PBNs to build websites) he was able to carve out a good income driven from his blog.
conclusion
These are the most common setups of websites that wish to take advantage of affiliate marketing. In reality your website could be a combination of any of the above layouts.
I recommend everyone at least try affiliate marketing. Reaching out to others to promote something you have made is a necessary skill that translates to almost any industry.
But before I leave:
Affiliate marketing is darn boring and draws on a wide range of skills:
- Photo editing
- Copy Crafting
- Pitching to others
- Seo
- Basic coding (html, css, some javascript)
- knowledge of hosting and cpanel
- Learning to use a CMS (likely wordpress or drupal)
The good news is that you can pick this up as you go, learning valuable skills along the way. Just do not think that you can throw a website up and be rewarded with instant riches. Those days are definitely gone.
Affiliate marketing is hard work. It is boring. There is little sign of progress for months and you will have to spend hours sitting on you butt writing about things you don’t even remotely care about. It is definitely hard work but the gains (knowledge and earning) are potentially huge.
Case study update: I know I said I would start my new case study in November, but I am taking a month long vacation in December, which will see the entire month count for nothing and I am spending most of this month swapping out expired links and obsolete products in preparation for the Christmas period on my existing websites.
So ultimately I came to the decision to put it off off until January, so that I can dedicate a whole calendar year to it.
Over the coming months I will be doing more posts like this one, focusing on different parts of the industry, pending how this post is received. Let me know if you liked this post and want to read more.
Submitted November 04, 2015 at 10:24AM by Humblesalesman http://ift.tt/1NPfBL0 Entrepreneur
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