🍪 Affiliate marketing is when you promote another company’s products and earn a commission when someone makes a purchase through your referral link.
📚 To get started with affiliate marketing, you’ll need a platform (such as a website or YouTube channel) and relevant, consistent traffic to attract visitors who are interested in making a purchase.
📈 Social media, ads, and search engines are popular channels for driving traffic to affiliate sites, with search engine optimization (SEO) being a recommended method for generating free and consistent traffic.
💰 The more relevant traffic you get, the more clicks you’ll receive on your affiliate links, leading to more conversions and higher earnings.
💼 Treating your affiliate site as a business and adopting a long-term perspective will help you build a sustainable income.
📝 Building an affiliate site involves finding a niche, planning your website’s content and structure, building the site, and implementing SEO strategies to attract traffic.
🔍 When finding a niche, consider factors such as competition, commercial value, personal interest, and the breadth of the search market.
💡 Keyword research and assessing keyword difficulty are essential for understanding the potential of a niche and identifying low-difficulty keywords to target.
💲 Understanding the commercial value of a niche involves researching market potential, affiliate program commissions, and advertising costs.
💚 While passion isn’t necessary, choosing a niche you have at least some interest in can help maintain motivation and prevent burnout.
📊 Analyzing search volumes and competitor traffic estimations can give insights into the potential traffic you can attract from search engines.
📊 The Domain Traffic filter is set to understand the breadth of the search market.
📌 Common sense is used to infer the topics of websites based on the referring page column.
✅ SEO competition is weak for the niche of knives with a low domain rating and decent search market breadth.
💰 The knives website has a monthly traffic value of around $50,000, indicating commercial potential.
🔎 Searching for “best of” posts in Content Explorer helps find niche sites with high traffic and low website authority.
🌐 Amazon Associates is a popular and trusted affiliate program with a wide range of products.
✨ Pros of Amazon Associates include a large inventory, international traffic monetization, and high conversion rate.
📉 The main con of Amazon Associates is generally low commissions compared to other programs.
🎯 Target offers a 7-day cookie life, providing more time for users to make purchases and generate commissions.
🌐 Commission Junction (CJ) and ShareASale are affiliate networks with access to thousands of affiliate programs.
❌ CJ requires applying for each program and has more selective acceptance compared to Amazon.
🌐 ShareASale is similar to CJ but has different merchants using the network.
🧩 Looking at competitors’ affiliate programs helps identify high-performing programs in a niche.
🔍 Ahrefs’ SEO toolbar and Site Explorer can be used to analyze competitors’ affiliate links and find common programs.
🔝 Product and brand reputation should be considered when choosing an affiliate program.
🔄 Conversion rate is important to consider, although it may not be readily available for most programs.
⚙️ The process of SEO traffic generation involves keyword research, content creation, and backlink acquisition.
📈 SEO traffic is free, passive, and consistent, making it an effective strategy for generating revenue.
🔎 In keyword research, there are four types of affiliate keywords: general comparisons, branded comparisons, product reviews, and T&A (Trust and Authority) keywords.
🧠 T&A keywords, focused on informational topics, help build trust with the audience and website authority through backlinks.
🗂️ Creating a massive web of related content is crucial for building topical authority, becoming an authoritative source on a given topic.
🏷️ Product clusters connect general comparison posts with multiple product review posts, allowing for efficient content creation and internal linking.
📚 T&A keywords provide informational resources and can be internally linked to relevant commercial pages.
⛓️ A solid internal linking plan helps provide a better user experience, facilitate the flow of PageRank, and improve page rankings.
🏠 Homepages of affiliate marketing sites should communicate the brand’s purpose, lead visitors towards conversion goals, and help rank important pages higher in Google.
💡 Listicles are effective for targeting keywords like “best
“
💡 Listicles have four main parts: introduction, summary, list points, and conclusion
💡 Introduction should be short, build credibility, and indicate that readers are in the right place
💡 Summary section helps skimmers by providing bullet points for different categories
💡 List points consist of headings (product names) and descriptions (details)
💡 Consistent format in descriptions helps readers absorb information efficiently
💡 Include affiliate links and product review page links in the description
💡 Conclusion wraps up the post and can suggest other related posts
💡 Product reviews aim to outline positives and negatives to help visitors make a purchase decision
💡 Branded comparisons (vs posts) help visitors weigh differences between products
💡 Branded comparison posts should link to individual product reviews and general comparison guide
💡 Understanding search intent is crucial for creating content that matches users’ queries
💡 Analyzing top-ranking pages for a query helps identify search intent
💡 Different blog post templates can be used for informational content, such as listicles
💡 Listicles should have a short introduction that builds trust and excitement
💡 Main content of listicles consists of headings and complementary content
💡 Headings in listicles should be descriptive and enticing
🏆 Creating informational posts as “hubs” can pass link authority to commercial pages and boost rankings, helping generate affiliate commissions.
📝 Making your content significantly better than competitors’ through hands-on reviews, custom visuals, and expert insights increases the chances of getting backlinks and shares.
🤝 Positioning yourself as an expert in your niche improves link building efforts as people value unique and insightful information from knowledgeable sources.
📰 Using HARO (Help a Reporter Out) can provide high-quality backlinks by responding to queries from journalists looking for experts in specific topics.
📝 Guest posting on relevant websites allows you to create content with attribution and a link back to your site, expanding your reach and acquiring backlinks.
🎙️ Being interviewed on podcasts as an expert in your niche helps build your reputation, network with industry professionals, and gain backlinks from podcast episode pages.
🔁 Consistently applying these three tactics (HARO, guest posting, and podcast interviews) can generate traction for your affiliate site.
