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Whether you want to earn money through your subscribers with affiliate marketing or want to create an affiliate program for your own brand, a website is a strong tool to have in your strategy. Brands and affiliates work together to promote that brand’s products or services. Every person an affiliate converts earns them a commission payout.
With an affiliate marketing website, you can turn your quality content into a passive income source or online business.
Benefits of using a website for affiliate marketing
You don’t need to have a website to run affiliate marketing or make money from being an affiliate. Many people become successful affiliates on social media or podcasts, for example. However, a website is a great way to share affiliate links, even if your audience mainly finds you on other platforms.
With a website, you get more:
Control over your content and how you connect with your audience: A website gives you more space to express yourself. On top of customizing your design, on your website, you can speak directly to your audience whenever you want. You aren’t constrained by algorithms or content limits.
Organic search traffic: If you optimize your website’s copy well for search engines, it’s like free promotion for your site and content. You’ll come up for commonly searched keywords related to your area of focus, making it easier for new visitors to find you.
Ways to share your affiliate links: No matter where your audience lives, you can always direct them back to your website to access your affiliate links. Set up a shop that links to affiliate products, add podcast show notes with relevant links, or create blog posts and newsletters to share roundups of your content and referral links.
Predictable metrics for testing: You can’t control algorithm changes or other people’s ad spending on other platforms, which means more variables can impact whether your content performs well or not. Website traffic can be a little less unpredictable, giving you clearer data to review.
Learn more affiliate marketing basics
How to start an affiliate website
An affiliate website makes sense if you want more control and ownership of the affiliate content you create or if the format you make content in is well-suited to a website. That might apply if you make long-form videos, blog posts or tutorials, or a podcast.
1. Do your prep work
Getting familiar with your target audience will help you make website decisions and tailor your content to those visitors. Once you’ve chosen the niche you want to focus on, take a look at the other affiliate marketers in the same space.
Look for trends among these creators and their audiences. This will give you an idea of what demographics are interested in this type of content, the tone of voice and visuals they respond to, and how you can put a unique spin on what’s already out there.
2. Get a domain name
Claiming a domain is a major part of making any new website a reality. A domain name is the URL assigned to your website, like squarespace.com, and it’s how people find you online.
Choose a domain that’s straightforward and simple to remember, like your name, the name of your brand, or your social media handle. Once you have a few top options, use a free domain search tool to make sure your favorite isn’t taken.
From there, you can register the domain on a domain registrar’s website and it’s ready for you to connect to an existing website or the one you’re about to build.
Learn more about getting and maintaining a domain name
3. Start a website
The quickest way to get a website up and running is to use a website builder. Instead of having to create your site from scratch, a good website platform has design tools and templates to get you started and handles technical details like website hosting.
With Squarespace, you can access additional tools to help you share your affiliate links. For example, you can start an affiliate storefront or create a link in bio Bio Site so social media followers can easily find your website.
4. Decide how you want to share content
Consider what type of content is best for what you’re promoting and the audience you’re trying to reach. Or if you have an engaged audience already, think about the best way to share promotions with them and earn their sales.
Even if you’re promoting individual affiliate links or a specific brand one way, it can still be helpful to put your affiliate links into an online store or some other browseable format. The easier you make it for your audience to find your affiliate links, the more likely it is they’ll find something they want to buy and earn you a commission.
5. Choose your affiliate programs
Pick a few brands to apply to based on your content audience and niche. If you’re not sure where to start, try looking into brands that you already know and would be excited to promote. Or look into an affiliate network, which makes your brand options more browseable.
You’ll need to go through an application process for any brand you want to partner with and share details about your audience and content.
6. Add affiliate links to your site and promote them
If you’re accepted into an affiliate program and sign a contract with a brand, you’ll get a unique affiliate link or discount code to share with your website audience. Any time someone uses that code or link to make a purchase, you earn a commission.
Driving more traffic to your website and the pages where you’re sharing affiliate links will increase the chances you have to convert a viewer into a buyer. Use your social profiles to point followers to your affiliate pages and include links to your content in email marketing and newsletters. Long-term, work on your site’s SEO so that people can organically discover your content and affiliate links via search.
Learn about social media affiliate marketing
7. Test and iterate
When you’re ready to launch your affiliate marketing strategy, it’s helpful to set some goals for your affiliate links. Try setting monthly, six-month, and annual goals for a number of conversions and commission earnings to start. Don’t be afraid to start small—you can always adjust goals as you go.
Pay attention to how you track against your goals and dig into any particularly strong or less positive performance. See if you can notice any trends that help you share more successful affiliate links in the future. Do certain types of content perform better or worse? What about certain products or product categories?
Get tips on using analytics to boost your sales
How to start affiliate marketing for your website
If you sell digital products, services, or physical products on your website, it might make sense to start your own affiliate marketing program to grow your business and audience. You can add an affiliate management tool to your website, like the impact.com Extension, to get started quickly.
Before you launch, you’ll need to decide a few things.
What you want to promote and what will count as a successful conversion for affiliates
How much you’ll pay affiliates and whether it’s as a flat fee or a percentage of a sale
How often you’ll pay out on successful conversions
With an affiliate management tool, you’ll be able to handle tracking affiliate sales and the overall performance of your program.
Create a web page for your affiliates
If you’re starting a new program or already have an affiliate program running, creating a landing page for your affiliate marketers can help them be more successful. Creating a separate website or web page gives you a space to share tips for successful sales, business updates, and promotional images, and gives affiliates a chance to connect with you and each other.
If you have a Squarespace website, you can add a Member Site that’s only accessible to your affiliates. That way, you don’t have to build a whole new website and affiliates can easily jump between their exclusive info and your content or products.