Build Your Web Presence and Create Valuable Content
Affiliate Marketing A-Z
1. Affiliate Marketing A-Z
Estimated time: 10:55 minutes
(Completed)2. Affiliate Marketing 101
Estimated time: 14:53 minutes
(Completed) (Completed) (Completed) (Completed)3. Get Started in Affiliate Marketing
Estimated time: 11:23 minutes
(Completed)4. Choosing Products and Services to Promote
Estimated time: 13:16 minutes
(Completed) (Completed)5. Build Your Web Presence and Create Valuable Content
Estimated time: 14:37 minutes
(Completed) (Completed) (Completed)6. Conclusion and Next Steps
Estimated time: 08:55 minutes
Module 4 – Build Your Web Presence and Create Valuable Content
Before you dive straight into affiliate marketing, you first need to build your web presence. No matter how you decide to put yourself and your links out there (social media, YouTube, email marketing, blog, website, etc.) you will need to populate all of these spaces with valuable, relevant, keyword-optimized content. This content will need to attract your target customers, build relationships with them, and gain their trust.
In this module, you will explore different ways to communicate with your audience, determining which strategies will work best for you and appeal to your niche. You will also learn what kind of content you need to create and how you can incorporate affiliate links in a way that is helpful to your audience.
Website or Blog
Most affiliates decide to incorporate a website or blog into their affiliate marketing strategy, but it isn't always necessary. However, a website serves as a 'home base', helping the affiliate create an identity and build trust and a relationship with the audience. When you establish a connection with your audience, it gives them more incentive to click affiliate links and purchase from merchants. And, if you want to join an affiliate network, most require that you have an active, live website.
Generally, affiliate marketing websites fall into one of these two categories and you can choose the one that makes the most sense to you.
Affiliate-Focused Niche Websites
This involves developing a niche website specifically for the purpose of affiliate marketing and the promotion of affiliate links. This is a good route to take if you don't already have a following through your personal or business web presence. At this point, you have already chosen a niche (e.g. parents who hike with their kids) and figured out your target (suburban and urban Millennial parents who take weekend hiking trips with their young children). This website would feature reviews, comparisons, tips about taking road trips with children, how to select the best trails for all levels, and strategies to keep kids interested. As you build the content and gain an audience, you will start to add affiliate links, banners, and more. Again, the subject you choose should be something you feel passionate about because you will be talking about it – a lot.
Blogs
A blog can be the 'main attraction' or a section of an existing business website. Generally, if you take this route, you already have an established following or customer base and want to monetize this audience. You will most likely have already built a relationship with your audience and established trust and respect. You can start to include affiliate links right away and work them into older posts.
Forums or Online Groups
You have to be cautious with this, as many group admins are on high alert for spammy affiliates who use the forum as a way to push products. Here are some tips for sharing your affiliate links in these spaces:
⦁ Understand the rules of the group and make sure you don't get flagged by admins
⦁ Read the room. For example, if you are in a dog group and somebody has announced the loss of a beloved pet, don't post your pet urn affiliate link
⦁ Work in affiliate links as recommendations, and only where they would actually benefit group members
⦁ Have a genuine interest in the group subject matter (this comes back to choosing a niche that you are passionate about)
⦁ Build relationships that will encourage them to connect with you outside the group and join your list
eBooks
Develop an eBook about a popular, specialized topic within your niche and work affiliate links into the content. This will require research and possibly outsourced writing, but it is an excellent way to establish yourself as an expert. So even if people don't read the entire eBook or click your links, the fact that you now have a book on that subject matter will encourage them to click future links that you share in social media posts, groups, or other (shorter!) pieces of content.
Social Media
Social media sites can be a powerful way to promote products and services and a valuable tool to learn about your audience and find out what they're interested in. Put the focus on specific platforms based on your niche and target audience. For example, if you are marketing to a 60+ adult, Facebook is a good platform to focus on.
Things to keep in mind when posting affiliate links on social media:
⦁ As in online forums, don't join a group on Facebook or LinkedIn in order to spam it with your affiliate links
⦁ Build a relationship with your audience
⦁ Create a shortened URL for your affiliate link using sites link ⦁ cuttly or ⦁ Bitly. It is more visually appealing and takes up fewer characters
YouTube Channel
Videos offer a dynamic, engaging way to connect with your audience and get them to click your affiliate links. Your affiliate link is included in the written description of the video.
It is important that the link doesn't simply go to a product listing on the merchant's site – there has to be a special offer or a giveaway. Hosting a YouTube channel requires effort (see, there is no such thing as truly passive income). You have to produce quality videos with great content, learn how to use keywords to get people to your videos, and build your audience of subscribers.
Online Publishing Platforms
You can use online publishing platforms (similar to online magazines) like Medium or Imprint to share your affiliate links. Medium has a large readership, analytics tools, and their domain authority will improve your stories' content ranking in Google. Most publishing platforms, including Medium, require that you disclose if you are sharing affiliate links.
Email Marketing
Send your list a weekly newsletter, update, or 'Top 5' roundup of your favorite products, including your affiliate links throughout. An email list allows you to communicate with your audience regularly, marketing to them directly with targeted affiliate links based on their interests and demographic information. Keep building this list by offering free content in exchange for their email address, using an opt-in form on your website or blog.
An important recommendation for affiliates without a website: Make it a priority to set up a hosted sign up/opt-in form through an online email marketing service like AWeber or GetResponse. Using a template, you can create an opt-in form, or even a dedicated subscriber page. The form has a unique URL that you can share on social media, in your email signature, etc.
As you can see, there are many channels you can use to communicate with your audience. To be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to build your niche and create a community around it. The ideal approach is to use multiple channels to communicate with your target audience, and populate these channels with valuable, relevant, and optimized content.
Content that Converts
Affiliates can use several different strategies to promote their product links, as long as they follow the merchant's terms of service and branding guidelines. The following examples outline different ways you can communicate with your audience and add affiliate links. When deciding where and what content to create, always keep in mind your target audience. You can refer back to Module 2 and review your answers about your target audience's demographics, psychographics, what they most want, and what products or services would solve their problems.
Product Reviews
Writing a product review is one of the most popular ways to integrate affiliate links into content. People click on reviews because they want to know more about a product, so they are already primed to purchase. Your job is to give them information about a product that will get them to click and commit. This is where establishing trust with your audience becomes very important – you have to give them a reason to seek out your opinion and then click your link, not somebody else's.
Product reviews are also great for attracting new people to your website or blog. Product reviews rank higher in search engine results because they contain product and brand keywords in multiple locations (page title, body copy, etc.). This will be even more effective if you have a very targeted niche.
Product reviews can be integrated into a blog, single topic website, or reviews can be the primary business of the website – providing product reviews and comparison around a single topic.
Here are some tips for writing a review that attracts new visitors and converts:
⦁ Describe each product in detail, including features, benefits, and drawbacks
⦁ Include multiple optimized images, along with the price and any discount
⦁ Share your personal experience with the product – your regular followers value your opinion and new visitors may choose to join your mailing list if they liked how you delivered your review and the personal details you shared resonated with them.
Posts About Your Niche
Instead of the product being front and center, include a product mention within a blog post about a related topic. The product should be skillfully worked into the content, not just an abrupt product mention or link at the end of the post. For example, you could write about getting caught in the rain during a day of hiking and mention the rain gear your kids always carry with them.
This can be included in a blog post or social media post. This type of post is beneficial because you don't have to write a full product review, simply include a great photo of your kid in her rain gear and a muddy trail, with a funny comment about the day, and one benefit of the product. ("Hardly takes up any space in your backpack and keeps you dry.")
Banners
Place your affiliate link as banner images on your website. The main benefit of a banner ad is it can be placed throughout your website on multiple pages. You don't have to worry about working a text link into content, just place the banner image throughout your site. And if your site is specifically about hiking with kids, a banner ad with rain gear for kids works pretty much anywhere.
Video Content
In the world of digital marketing, the popularity of video content has increased exponentially , this holds true for the affiliate world too. In YouTube videos, affiliates will show the product and demonstrate its use. This increases viewer trust because they see you interacting and using the actual product. You can either purchase the product, or sometimes merchants will send influencers and reviewers a free product in exchange for promotion.
Video allows people to see the product in action and that is why it is such a high-converting method of sharing an affiliate link. Videos also allow the audience to build a relationship with the reviewer and feel like they know them, building trust and respect.
Affiliate links are shared in the description box. If you mention several products in the video, include the product name before each link.
Here are a few YouTube content ideas to get you started:
⦁ Product reviews
⦁ Demos
⦁ 'Unboxing' events (you reveal a new product live on camera)
⦁ Instructional videos
⦁ Animated explainer videos
⦁ Video blogs where you provide personal or professional updates
Content Rules to Remember
No matter how you decide to deliver your content, there are some rules that apply across the board.
Disclose Affiliate Links
Inform visitors when you are using affiliate links – users will appreciate this, especially if you have already built a relationship with them and they trust you. An important part of this equation is also providing content and information that doesn't always result in a commission for you. Don't flood your content and social media presence with affiliate links.
Be Authentic
Promote products you truly believe in – either something you have used yourself or something you know your audience would truly appreciate. And you should have a true connection with the audience: If you have a 'hiking with kids' site, you should have kids and like to hike.
Provide Value
Valuable content provides your audience with the tools to act and answers the questions that they have been asking. It also invites discussion and gets shared on social media, forums, and groups. You can find out what your audience has been searching for and answer their questions by using tools like Answer the Public, which takes autocomplete data from search engines and provides a list of phrases and questions people are asking about your keywords or niche.
Keep it Relevant
Make sure the products you promote are always relevant to your audience. Don't add throwaway links.
Be Original and Creative
There are a lot of affiliates out there trying to promote the same products and target a similar audience. Weave in a story demonstrating why your website's recommendations are more valuable than others.
Drive Traffic to Your Content
You don't want to create all of this valuable content in a vacuum. You want your target audience to find you and your affiliate links. Understanding and incorporating SEO (search engine optimization) is major part of being a successful affiliate marketer.
Optimize Your Content
Optimizing your content with keywords is a necessary step to drive organic traffic from search results. Refer back to your keyword research related to your niche and what is popular with your target audience. Incorporate these keywords into the content you produce and test which ones not only drive traffic to your content, but also result in people clicking your affiliate links.
Use one main keyword for each piece of content
Don't overload a single piece of content with every keyword you brainstormed related to your niche. Search engines will direct people to valuable content that addresses specific search terms or queries. If you load up your content with every imaginable keyword related to the subject, the search engine may not consider it specific enough to be valuable.
You also need to test which keywords and keyword phrases work and which don't. If you load up on keywords, it is difficult to determine which one is driving people to your content and getting them to click the link.
Place your keyword/keyword phrase in several places within a piece of content
Add the keyword to the title, sub-headers, image alt-text, and main content. Make sure to do this as naturally as possible so the keywords don't interrupt the flow and make your content difficult to read.
Optimize Your Links
You can optimize your links by shortening and branding them – this will make them easy to remember and share. WordPress has a plugin called Pretty Links that allows you to do this, or you can use link shortening generators like cuttly.
Invest in Paid Ads
Consider non-organic traffic, such as paid ads, when you are sure that keywords in your content are converting and you are confident that the expense is worth it. An ad expert can be valuable at this stage.
Building your web presence, creating valuable content, and driving traffic to your content (and therefore to your link) is an important part of affiliate marketing. But you need to constantly monitor and test what is working and what isn't so you can adapt and adjust. In the next module, you will learn how to analyze the performance of your links and your content and evaluate the effectiveness of your communications channels.
Action Steps:
⦁ If you are creating a website, think about what approach will work best for you, your niche, and your target audience: a niche website or a blog? List 5 pros and cons of each in your Action Guide.
⦁ Analyze which social media platforms are the most popular with your target audience, and if you haven't already, set up an account and start populating it with relevant content. Don't worry about affiliate links right now, just focus on providing valuable and helpful content.
⦁ Research forums or groups that your target audience visits. Join these and start reading comments and interacting with group members.
⦁ Review the content suggestions in this module (eBook, blog posts, online publishing platforms, YouTube videos etc.) Brainstorm 15-20 specific ideas that are related to your niche, referring back to some of the preliminary ideas you started generating in Module 2. (e.g. for video ideas, think of a specific product review, instructional video, or comparison video you could record).
⦁ From the content ideas you generated, pick the top 5 you'd like to start with, and select and write down the keyword that you'll optimize it for, so that you can get organic traffic. Refer back to the initial keyword research you did in module 2 and also revisit ⦁ Ubersuggest, with the additional knowledge and information you now have. Consider where else you'll share content to drive traffic to it (e.g., your email list, social media groups, and posts) and come up with a topline idea for each.
⦁ Prepare to start building your email list. Brainstorm 10 ideas for free content you could provide to your target audience in exchange for their email address.
Before you dive straight into affiliate marketing, you first need to build your web presence. No matter how you decide to put yourself and your links out there (social media, YouTube, email marketing, blog, website, etc.) you will need to populate all of these spaces with valuable, relevant, keyword-optimized content. This content will need to attract your target customers, build relationships with them, and gain their trust.
In this module, you will explore different ways to communicate with your audience, determining which strategies will work best for you and appeal to your niche. You will also learn what kind of content you need to create and how you can incorporate affiliate links in a way that is helpful to your audience.
Website or Blog
Most affiliates decide to incorporate a website or blog into their affiliate marketing strategy, but it isn't always necessary. However, a website serves as a 'home base', helping the affiliate create an identity and build trust and a relationship with the audience. When you establish a connection with your audience, it gives them more incentive to click affiliate links and purchase from merchants. And, if you want to join an affiliate network, most require that you have an active, live website.
Generally, affiliate marketing websites fall into one of these two categories and you can choose the one that makes the most sense to you.
Affiliate-Focused Niche Websites
This involves developing a niche website specifically for the purpose of affiliate marketing and the promotion of affiliate links. This is a good route to take if you don't already have a following through your personal or business web presence. At this point, you have already chosen a niche (e.g. parents who hike with their kids) and figured out your target (suburban and urban Millennial parents who take weekend hiking trips with their young children). This website would feature reviews, comparisons, tips about taking road trips with children, how to select the best trails for all levels, and strategies to keep kids interested. As you build the content and gain an audience, you will start to add affiliate links, banners, and more. Again, the subject you choose should be something you feel passionate about because you will be talking about it – a lot.
Blogs
A blog can be the 'main attraction' or a section of an existing business website. Generally, if you take this route, you already have an established following or customer base and want to monetize this audience. You will most likely have already built a relationship with your audience and established trust and respect. You can start to include affiliate links right away and work them into older posts.
Forums or Online Groups
You have to be cautious with this, as many group admins are on high alert for spammy affiliates who use the forum as a way to push products. Here are some tips for sharing your affiliate links in these spaces:
⦁ Understand the rules of the group and make sure you don't get flagged by admins
⦁ Read the room. For example, if you are in a dog group and somebody has announced the loss of a beloved pet, don't post your pet urn affiliate link
⦁ Work in affiliate links as recommendations, and only where they would actually benefit group members
⦁ Have a genuine interest in the group subject matter (this comes back to choosing a niche that you are passionate about)
⦁ Build relationships that will encourage them to connect with you outside the group and join your list
eBooks
Develop an eBook about a popular, specialized topic within your niche and work affiliate links into the content. This will require research and possibly outsourced writing, but it is an excellent way to establish yourself as an expert. So even if people don't read the entire eBook or click your links, the fact that you now have a book on that subject matter will encourage them to click future links that you share in social media posts, groups, or other (shorter!) pieces of content.
Social Media
Social media sites can be a powerful way to promote products and services and a valuable tool to learn about your audience and find out what they're interested in. Put the focus on specific platforms based on your niche and target audience. For example, if you are marketing to a 60+ adult, Facebook is a good platform to focus on.
Things to keep in mind when posting affiliate links on social media:
⦁ As in online forums, don't join a group on Facebook or LinkedIn in order to spam it with your affiliate links
⦁ Build a relationship with your audience
⦁ Create a shortened URL for your affiliate link using sites link ⦁ cuttly or ⦁ Bitly. It is more visually appealing and takes up fewer characters
YouTube Channel
Videos offer a dynamic, engaging way to connect with your audience and get them to click your affiliate links. Your affiliate link is included in the written description of the video.
It is important that the link doesn't simply go to a product listing on the merchant's site – there has to be a special offer or a giveaway. Hosting a YouTube channel requires effort (see, there is no such thing as truly passive income). You have to produce quality videos with great content, learn how to use keywords to get people to your videos, and build your audience of subscribers.
Online Publishing Platforms
You can use online publishing platforms (similar to online magazines) like Medium or Imprint to share your affiliate links. Medium has a large readership, analytics tools, and their domain authority will improve your stories' content ranking in Google. Most publishing platforms, including Medium, require that you disclose if you are sharing affiliate links.
Email Marketing
Send your list a weekly newsletter, update, or 'Top 5' roundup of your favorite products, including your affiliate links throughout. An email list allows you to communicate with your audience regularly, marketing to them directly with targeted affiliate links based on their interests and demographic information. Keep building this list by offering free content in exchange for their email address, using an opt-in form on your website or blog.
An important recommendation for affiliates without a website: Make it a priority to set up a hosted sign up/opt-in form through an online email marketing service like AWeber or GetResponse. Using a template, you can create an opt-in form, or even a dedicated subscriber page. The form has a unique URL that you can share on social media, in your email signature, etc.
As you can see, there are many channels you can use to communicate with your audience. To be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to build your niche and create a community around it. The ideal approach is to use multiple channels to communicate with your target audience, and populate these channels with valuable, relevant, and optimized content.
Content that Converts
Affiliates can use several different strategies to promote their product links, as long as they follow the merchant's terms of service and branding guidelines. The following examples outline different ways you can communicate with your audience and add affiliate links. When deciding where and what content to create, always keep in mind your target audience. You can refer back to Module 2 and review your answers about your target audience's demographics, psychographics, what they most want, and what products or services would solve their problems.
Product Reviews
Writing a product review is one of the most popular ways to integrate affiliate links into content. People click on reviews because they want to know more about a product, so they are already primed to purchase. Your job is to give them information about a product that will get them to click and commit. This is where establishing trust with your audience becomes very important – you have to give them a reason to seek out your opinion and then click your link, not somebody else's.
Product reviews are also great for attracting new people to your website or blog. Product reviews rank higher in search engine results because they contain product and brand keywords in multiple locations (page title, body copy, etc.). This will be even more effective if you have a very targeted niche.
Product reviews can be integrated into a blog, single topic website, or reviews can be the primary business of the website – providing product reviews and comparison around a single topic.
Here are some tips for writing a review that attracts new visitors and converts:
⦁ Describe each product in detail, including features, benefits, and drawbacks
⦁ Include multiple optimized images, along with the price and any discount
⦁ Share your personal experience with the product – your regular followers value your opinion and new visitors may choose to join your mailing list if they liked how you delivered your review and the personal details you shared resonated with them.
Posts About Your Niche
Instead of the product being front and center, include a product mention within a blog post about a related topic. The product should be skillfully worked into the content, not just an abrupt product mention or link at the end of the post. For example, you could write about getting caught in the rain during a day of hiking and mention the rain gear your kids always carry with them.
This can be included in a blog post or social media post. This type of post is beneficial because you don't have to write a full product review, simply include a great photo of your kid in her rain gear and a muddy trail, with a funny comment about the day, and one benefit of the product. ("Hardly takes up any space in your backpack and keeps you dry.")
Banners
Place your affiliate link as banner images on your website. The main benefit of a banner ad is it can be placed throughout your website on multiple pages. You don't have to worry about working a text link into content, just place the banner image throughout your site. And if your site is specifically about hiking with kids, a banner ad with rain gear for kids works pretty much anywhere.
Video Content
In the world of digital marketing, the popularity of video content has increased exponentially , this holds true for the affiliate world too. In YouTube videos, affiliates will show the product and demonstrate its use. This increases viewer trust because they see you interacting and using the actual product. You can either purchase the product, or sometimes merchants will send influencers and reviewers a free product in exchange for promotion.
Video allows people to see the product in action and that is why it is such a high-converting method of sharing an affiliate link. Videos also allow the audience to build a relationship with the reviewer and feel like they know them, building trust and respect.
Affiliate links are shared in the description box. If you mention several products in the video, include the product name before each link.
Here are a few YouTube content ideas to get you started:
⦁ Product reviews
⦁ Demos
⦁ 'Unboxing' events (you reveal a new product live on camera)
⦁ Instructional videos
⦁ Animated explainer videos
⦁ Video blogs where you provide personal or professional updates
Content Rules to Remember
No matter how you decide to deliver your content, there are some rules that apply across the board.
Disclose Affiliate Links
Inform visitors when you are using affiliate links – users will appreciate this, especially if you have already built a relationship with them and they trust you. An important part of this equation is also providing content and information that doesn't always result in a commission for you. Don't flood your content and social media presence with affiliate links.
Be Authentic
Promote products you truly believe in – either something you have used yourself or something you know your audience would truly appreciate. And you should have a true connection with the audience: If you have a 'hiking with kids' site, you should have kids and like to hike.
Provide Value
Valuable content provides your audience with the tools to act and answers the questions that they have been asking. It also invites discussion and gets shared on social media, forums, and groups. You can find out what your audience has been searching for and answer their questions by using tools like Answer the Public, which takes autocomplete data from search engines and provides a list of phrases and questions people are asking about your keywords or niche.
Keep it Relevant
Make sure the products you promote are always relevant to your audience. Don't add throwaway links.
Be Original and Creative
There are a lot of affiliates out there trying to promote the same products and target a similar audience. Weave in a story demonstrating why your website's recommendations are more valuable than others.
Drive Traffic to Your Content
You don't want to create all of this valuable content in a vacuum. You want your target audience to find you and your affiliate links. Understanding and incorporating SEO (search engine optimization) is major part of being a successful affiliate marketer.
Optimize Your Content
Optimizing your content with keywords is a necessary step to drive organic traffic from search results. Refer back to your keyword research related to your niche and what is popular with your target audience. Incorporate these keywords into the content you produce and test which ones not only drive traffic to your content, but also result in people clicking your affiliate links.
Use one main keyword for each piece of content
Don't overload a single piece of content with every keyword you brainstormed related to your niche. Search engines will direct people to valuable content that addresses specific search terms or queries. If you load up your content with every imaginable keyword related to the subject, the search engine may not consider it specific enough to be valuable.
You also need to test which keywords and keyword phrases work and which don't. If you load up on keywords, it is difficult to determine which one is driving people to your content and getting them to click the link.
Place your keyword/keyword phrase in several places within a piece of content
Add the keyword to the title, sub-headers, image alt-text, and main content. Make sure to do this as naturally as possible so the keywords don't interrupt the flow and make your content difficult to read.
Optimize Your Links
You can optimize your links by shortening and branding them – this will make them easy to remember and share. WordPress has a plugin called Pretty Links that allows you to do this, or you can use link shortening generators like cuttly.
Invest in Paid Ads
Consider non-organic traffic, such as paid ads, when you are sure that keywords in your content are converting and you are confident that the expense is worth it. An ad expert can be valuable at this stage.
Building your web presence, creating valuable content, and driving traffic to your content (and therefore to your link) is an important part of affiliate marketing. But you need to constantly monitor and test what is working and what isn't so you can adapt and adjust. In the next module, you will learn how to analyze the performance of your links and your content and evaluate the effectiveness of your communications channels.
Action Steps:
⦁ If you are creating a website, think about what approach will work best for you, your niche, and your target audience: a niche website or a blog? List 5 pros and cons of each in your Action Guide.
⦁ Analyze which social media platforms are the most popular with your target audience, and if you haven't already, set up an account and start populating it with relevant content. Don't worry about affiliate links right now, just focus on providing valuable and helpful content.
⦁ Research forums or groups that your target audience visits. Join these and start reading comments and interacting with group members.
⦁ Review the content suggestions in this module (eBook, blog posts, online publishing platforms, YouTube videos etc.) Brainstorm 15-20 specific ideas that are related to your niche, referring back to some of the preliminary ideas you started generating in Module 2. (e.g. for video ideas, think of a specific product review, instructional video, or comparison video you could record).
⦁ From the content ideas you generated, pick the top 5 you'd like to start with, and select and write down the keyword that you'll optimize it for, so that you can get organic traffic. Refer back to the initial keyword research you did in module 2 and also revisit ⦁ Ubersuggest, with the additional knowledge and information you now have. Consider where else you'll share content to drive traffic to it (e.g., your email list, social media groups, and posts) and come up with a topline idea for each.
⦁ Prepare to start building your email list. Brainstorm 10 ideas for free content you could provide to your target audience in exchange for their email address.
